At the 2026 Winter Olympics, taking place in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, the representative of Kazakhstan, Mikhail Shaidurov, won sensational gold in men's singles figure skating. This is the country's first Olympic victory in this sport. This is reported by DW.
In the final, the 21-year-old athlete scored 291.58 points in total for the short and free programs. After the short program, Shaidurov was only in fifth place, but confidently made a comeback in the free program, surpassing all the tournament favorites.
Gold in figure skating at the 2026 Olympics: how Shaidurov won
The silver medal was won by Japanese Yuma Kagiyama with a score of 280.06 points, and the bronze went to his compatriot Shun Sato, who scored 274.90 points. The main tournament favorite, two-time world champion from the USA Ilia Malinin, fell twice in the free program and ended up in eighth place.
Russian figure skater Pyotr Gumennik, who competed in a neutral status, finished the tournament in sixth place. Thus, Shaidurov's result became one of the biggest surprises of these Olympic Games.
Kazakhstan's historical achievement at the Winter Olympics
Mikhail Shaidurov is the silver medalist of the 2025 World Championship and the winner of the 2025 Four Continents Championship. His coach is Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov from 1994. Shaidurov also made history as the first figure skater to perform a triple axel – quadruple toe loop cascade in competition.
This gold became only the second for Kazakhstan in the entire history of the Winter Olympics. Previously, the only victory for the country was brought by skier Vladimir Smirnov in Lillehammer 1994. In figure skating, Kazakhstan also had an Olympic bronze, won by Denis Ten in Sochi 2014.
Recall that the Ukrainian skeleton athlete was disqualified at the Olympics.